Iron stand



July 7, 1936. s. A. DUVALL IRON STAND Filed Nov. 14, 1934 57cm /ey A BUVa/L Patented July 7, 1936 IRON s PATENT orrics STAND Stanley Alexander Duvall, New York, 3?.

Application November 1 2 Claims.

:My invention relates to supports cr stands for nations and isespecially adapted to stands for electric fiatirons although itis of improved usefulness with any form of iron. The present applic'ation is a continuation in part of my prior oo -pending application filed May '7, 1934, Serial No. 724,420, in which I have described and claimed an improved iron stand and anchoring means for ready attachment and detachment to and from an ironing board. In the present case, I 'shall describe the same iron stand, together with specially improved supporting means, as .well as certain specific features.

"With the use of the ordinary iron holder requiring the iron to be lifted from the board in order to place it on the holder or requiring an upward pull on the iron in order to partly overcome the weight of the iron to reduce friction where, the iron is slid up an incline from the board to the holder, it is impossible for the user to iron sitting down, because of the necessity for repeatedly lifting the iron, with great fatigue. The result is that-the user must stand up over the board in order to bring the shoulder of the lifting arm over the board and avoid-having to reach out in lifting.

The present'invention therefore seeks to provide an iron stand the use of which requires substantially no upward pull on the iron and ofiers a minimum resistance to movement of the iron onto and off of the stand. This object is accomplished in the main by the provision of an anti-friction support for the iron together with an anti-friction guide for guiding the iron up onto the support; H

A further object is to provide a stand capable of conserving the heat of the ironwhile not in use or,- in the case of an electric iron, while being heated, and capable of effectively insulatingv the heat of the iron from the ironingboard, without subjecting the polished surface of the iron to rubbing contact with portions of the standand with substantial elimination of any tendency of the iron to stick to the stand.

45 It has been observed in practice, especially in the case of electrically heated irons, that the .i-ronhas a tendency to stick to the surface of a supportwith slight though sufficient adherence to appreciably retard the sliding of the iron oi oi the support, and that even with anti-friction supporting members in the form of rollers of extended area, there is an appreciable tendency to stick. The present invention overcomes this tendency by the use of a novel arrangement and 5 5 ,c'onstructiomof anti friction bearing members 4, 1934., Serial No. 753,037 ((31. 68-27) with relatively small area of contact with surface of the iron.

'Aiurther object is to provide a stand for use with modern electric irons that has a highly plated and polished bottom plate or sole plate, 5. said stand being so constructed as to preserve the high lustre finish of the bottom plate of any iron placed thereon.

. Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the reading of the follow- 0' ing specification with reference to the drawing accompanying the same. v

In the drawing, Figure l is a plan view of one form of the invention.

Figure-2 is a side View of Figure it. partly in 1.5 longitudinal section.

Referring to the drawing in detail, and first .to Figures 1 and 2, the invention is here shown embodied in a standfor holding an electrically heated mm of the cordless type and it is thereiore provided with a housing at the'rear end, housing a suitable'jackor electric connecting socket (not shown) with which suitable plug contacts (2) carried by the iron (3) are arranged to engage for the purpose of supplying current to the iron while it rests on the holder. The holder comprises a base member (4) in the general form of an inverted shallow pan with a pair of guide flanges (5) extending upwardly along each side suitably spaced to act as guides to guide the iron (3)--(shown in dotted lines) into position on the stand to bring the plug contact (2) into proper engagement with the con necting jack in the. housing. Roller bearing supporting members (6) with convex bearing surfaces are mounted above the top surface of the base member (4') between the guide flanges (5) and journaledqon spindles (8) mounted in the guide flanges and extending transversely of the length of the stand. Additional guideir'ollers (ID and 1) are mounted transversely of the stand, roller (1 being mounted on spindles (9) the same as rollers (6) but not acting as a support to the iron, and roller (l0) being mounted near the leading edge and close to the lowermost portion thereof, on spindles (l I which in turn are mounted in upstanding side lugs (I2) carried by the base member (4).

The roller bearing supports (6) have their bearing surfaces sloping outwardly in opposite directions from convenient points so as to form a substantially convex bearing suriace as shown at ('23) to provide for the smallest possible point of contact with the bottom of the iron, These contact surfaces (23) of the rollers (6) ior m the the sole direct support of the iron while the latter is resting on the stand and must be made as small as possible, not over .005 of an inch. The rollers (l' and are guide rollers arranged at lower levels to guide the iron from the surface (I 3) of an ironing board up onto the convex supporting rollers (6). As will be clear from Figure 2, the guide rollers (7) and (i0) lie below the level of the top surfaces of the convex supporting rollers (6) and are engaged with their upper bearing surface in an inclined plane sloping downwardly from the elevated horizontal plane in which lie the top surfaces of the convex supporting rollers (6). The leading edge or front edge portion (ll) of the base member (4) slopes down to the surface of the ironing board with the front guide roller (I0) partly countersunk therein so as to bring the upper surface of the roller as near as possible to the level of the surface of the ironing board. To enable the heel of the iron to be pushed up over the roller (l0) without having to lift the iron,vthe heel of the iron is beveled upwardly and outwardly from its lower surface as indicated at (IS) in Figure 2. To insure rolling of. the various convex roller supports (6) and guide. rollers (1 and I0) with the movement of the iron thereover, that portion which contacts with the iron is made of a greater radius than that of the spindles and to reduce to a minimum any tendency of the iron to stick to the roller supports (6), the said roller supports (6) have their surfaces made convex so as to provide for the smallest possible point of contact with the bottom of the iron. For example, not over .005 of an inch as indicated by (23) in Figure 1. The spindes (8) are mounted at one end in one of the guide flanges directly in small openings (l9) while the other ends of the spindles are mounted in bushings (20) threaded into large openings (2|) in the other guide flange. Preferably the spindles are stationary with the roller (6) arranged to rotate freely thereon although it is obvious that if desirable the spindles may be rotatably mounted in the guide flanges (5) with the rollers either fixed to the spindles or rotatably mounted thereon. Similarly, the roller (1) is preferably mounted on its spindle (9) which passes all the way through the roller (1) and is mounted at each end in openings (22) in the guide flanges (5).

To conserve the heat in the iron while resting on the stand and to insulate the heat of the iron from the ironing board the lower surface of the stand is provided with an insulating shield in the form of a plate (54) of asbestos or equivalent heat insulating material secured to the bottom of the stand by threaded fasteners (55) as shown in Figure 2. The thickness ofthe insulating plate (54) is so proportioned in relation to the spacing of the bottom of the holderfrom the board so as to leave an air space between the plate (54) and the board which together with the air space between the stand and the bottom surface of the iron and the plate (54) acts to effectively insulate the iron from the board to prevent scorching of the board and to conserve the heat of the iron while the latter is resting on the stand.

Because of the negligible amount of frictional resistance offered to the sliding of the iron up onto the stand and along the stand over the roller supports against the housing (I), very slight anchorage of the iron on the board is necessary to prevent the stand from sliding along the'board each time the iron is moved onto or off the stand. It is therefore necessary to provide only a slight anchorage between the stand and the board and this is effected by the provision of a pair of anchor pins (56). The anchor pins (56) are more fully described and claimed 5 in my co--pending application Serial No. 724,420, filed May 7, 1934.

In operation, the stand is placed on the ordinary covered and padded ironing board in a convenient position and the anchor pins turned to 10 proper adjustment for a slight penetrating engagement with the board. The weight of the iron and the holder together with some downward pressure by the user in moving the iron onto and off of the stand, maintain firm engagement of the anchor pins with the board. With the iron (3) resting on the stand as indicated in dotted lines in Figure 2, the heat of the iron is conserved and insulated from the board by the asbestos plate (54), the air space between the bottom of the iron and the holder, and the air space between the bottom of the iron and the board. As the convex roller bearing supporting members (6) support the iron at their high points or contact surfaces (23) in a substantially 25 level position, and as the guide rollers (I and l 0) are arranged in .a plane sloping toward the board, the user may slide the iron off the holder onto the board with a minimum of effort. In returning the iron to the holder the user has simply to slide the heel of the iron against the roller (ID) at the leading edge of the stand whereupon the cam action between the beveled rear edge (18) of the heel of the iron and the roller (IE!) will cause the iron to ride up onto the roller (l0) and then up onto the rollers (9 and 6) without the necessity of the user having to lift the iron from the board to place it on the holder or even to bear upwardly on the iron to reduce the frictional resistance to the sliding movement. Thus very little force need be exerted in sliding the iron up onto the stand and what little force is necessary is applied substantially wholly in a lateral direction and is therefore effectively resisted by the points of the anchor pins.

It is known to be old to provide iron stands with anti-friction rollers of various kinds but heretofore there have never been any iron stands provided with my particular type of anti-friction 5Q roller. The patents which have previously issued for iron stands with rollers are all provided 'with rollers which contact a large surface of the iron bottom and consequently as an iron of the modern type is heated upon the stand these rollers will stick or fuse to the iron and mar the highly polished bottom surface of the iron. I avoid this by the use of narrow convex rollers for the purpose of keeping the cordless iron from sticking or fusing to the stand as the heat that .60 is used in a modern cordless electric iron from 600, 800 to 1,000 watts necessarily renders the iron very hot while it is on the stand, and especially a heat insulated stand. This also applies to a continuously heated electric iron such as an iron with a cord.

While I have thus shown and described one embodiment of my invention for the sake of disclosure, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the specific embodiments shown but contemplates all such modifications and variations thereof as fall fairly within the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is:-

1. An iron stand comprising a base, upwardly extending guide flanges on each side of the base, spindles mounted in the guide flanges and extending transversely of the stand, and bearing support members journaled loosely on the spindles 5 to act as supporting members for an iron placed on the stand.

2. An iron stand comprising a base having a horizontal plane and a plane sloping downwardly from the horizontal plane in a continuation of the first plane, upwardly extending flanges on each side of both planes of the base, spindles mounted in the flanges on each side of the base and parallel to the base at the horizontal plane and short narrow supporting rollers journaled loosely on the spindles near the ends of the spindles close to the flanges on each side of the base, parallel to the horizontal plane of the base, said rollers sloping from a point intermediate their ends so as to form high spots intermediate the ends of the rollers for contact with the bottom of an iron resting on the stand.

STANLEY ALEXANDER. DUVALL. 

